The Third Card
by prismdrgn
Summary: Set in 1923, pre-PatF.  Iris Fairchild longs to return to California. Does she have the strength to resist Facilier's "help"?


The Third Card

Iris Fairchild sat on a green bench facing St. Louis Cathedral, the magnificent basilica that was the crown of the Crescent City. Once its beauty filled her with a sense of wonder and hope, but not today. This afternoon, her eyes were turned inward to the train tracks that ran parallel to the Mississippi River. Shimmering with the New Orleans summer heat, the surreal road of wood and steel stretched out of sight, far away to the West, where Fairchild herself longed to be. Among the California orange groves, wild sunflowers, blue waves of the Pacific Ocean - that was where her heart lay.

There were also the jacarandas to consider. Surely they had bloomed by now and spread their violet petals across roadway, grass, and roofs. Fairchild had promised herself and Eve that she would return to California by the time they bloomed. However, it had not come to pass. While people and places she loved out West waited like enchanted sleepers locked away in a lofty tower, she remained trapped here, wandering a hazy dream thickly scented with magnolia and star jasmine.

So much Fairchild wrote in her notebook. Sweat dripped down her pencil like the tears she yearned to cry for the distance, for the difficulty.

Fairchild had gone to California for college in utter defiance of her parents' wishes. Roland and Amelia Fairchild were especially miffed that she had turned down three marriage proposals before leaving. Their fury was still smoldering when she came home for Christmas break.

Amelia, in particular, was outraged that her daughter wished to return West and support herself rather than marry a Southern gentleman and settle down. "The scandal! Our daughter, working as if she were poor trash," she had screeched. "That school gave you these foolish notions! We did not raise you to be so wild!"

Before leaving California after her graduation, Fairchild had met with many of her colleagues' acquaintances in the hope of finding work and written to many more. All had turned her down. The country was still getting used to the idea of women voting. Perhaps working was a bit much to ask at this very moment, Eve had written to her after Fairchild confessed her discouragement. Eve had also suggested that she seek work in New Orleans so she would not lose her edge. Her postscript of "I'm certain you'll be back with us soon, darling" had warmed Fairchild, but the sight of the railroad tracks had renewed her ruled the working world. Even her father's money and the prestige of the Fairchild name could not buy her membership into their exclusive little club.

Furthermore, unless her parents experienced a change of heart, Fairchild had no money to call her own. Should she ever break out of her gilded cage, she would be a pauper.

And so she sat in the lingering heat of russet evening, not wanting to return home to cold stares or lectures on a "woman's place."

Indecision so absorbed her that Fairchild took no notice of the tall, slender man until he spoke.

"This is an afternoon for dozin', not thinkin' heavy thoughts."

A hot breeze, harbinger of a storm, swept past.

"I didn't realize it was so obvious," Fairchild muttered, still half in her thoughts.

"I am Dr. Facilier." He swept off his tophat as he bowed to her. His shadow seemed a step behind him. Fairchild blinked. Perhaps it was the heat.

The shadow's owner smiled as he re-covered his wild hair. "I specialize in helpin' people, so I know when they're thinkin' hard about somethin'." His hand flew into his jacket pocket. A card danced through his long fingers into Fairchild's; it identified him as one of those tarot readers whom her father condemned as "lazy charlatans in need of real jobs."

"Iris Fairchild," she answered without thinking. She regretted it at once. To hear Amelia rant, every poor person in New Orleans was a kidnapper intent on securing a cut of Roland Fairchild's substantial money and power. Fairchild did not share her mother's paranoia. However, Facilier hardly seemed trustworthy.

"Fairchild, is it? Well, you are fair."

His eyes were striking, the hue of jacaranda petals. Something flashed in them when he looked at her, perhaps the last of sunset vanishing into his dusky irises.

"But you're no child," he added.

In all her life, no man had ever dared say something so suggestive to her. Something inside warned Fairchild not to let on how she was responding to his smooth talk, to the spark she'd glimpsed in his eyes.

"So I've been told," Fairchild said.

The lithe man gave a light, self-deprecating chuckle. "Well, I see why you ain't impressed with my little joke, seein' as you're a woman of words."

Fairchild knew at that moment Facilier had seen her notebook, perhaps even watched her write in it. How long had he observed her this afternoon?

"How 'bout you let me read your cards? I wager – and I'm not a bettin' man - you'd be a fascinatin' individual."

"I'd love to," Fairchild said. "But I have no money for it."

"That ain't a problem." Cards arced through Facilier's hands, only to vanish, possibly up his sleeve, though the opening seemed rather narrow for that. "I'll give it to you free. I've been through hard times before; I know how it is."

From his ill-fitting clothes, he still was. Fairchild pointed this out.

"I've got my motives." To all appearances, he was admitting to a weakness. The charmer, charmed. But Fairchild knew better. "There's somethin' different about you. I wanna know what it is."

At that, Fairchild found her brain and mouth at odds. Her head condemned Facilier for having a clichéd line he probably used specifically to flatter susceptible women. Her mouth, however, answered, "Fair enough."

As Facilier shuffled, she was acutely conscious of the painters and other tarot readers leaving Jackson Square and the deepening shadows taking their place. Her mind returned to her past experiences with salesmen and how unpleasant she found their pushy, fast-talking ways. But there was – she cringed that it was his words that came to mind - something different about Facilier. She choked off thoughts of the spark that had jumped from his eyes to hers, not daring to explore its implications.

"Three cards," Facilier was saying.

"What?"

"Just pick three." Facilier held out the deck to her.

Fairchild chose with a steady hand, but her heart beat as rapidly as though she held a letter from California.

Facilier began the reading. "The first card, the Ten of Pentacles reversed, shows the past. This card is one of homecomin'. It should've been your triumph, a time of prosperity and strengthened family ties. But you don't see eye to eye with Mommy and Daddy, never have... You see accomplishments; they see wasted time."

"Perhaps you are right," Fairchild said. The small part of her that cared about respectability cringed a bit that gossip about her was so widespread that even the lower class was discussing it. For that was how he knew, wasn't it?

"I've got nothin' to prove, ma chère. I only read what the cards tell me. Yours is the energy that guides them. Ah, and they tell me that money is the golden chain keepin' you here."

"Do you write, yourself?" Fairchild said.

"I have a bit of poetry in me sometimes. But back to the cards. This next card tells me New Orleans ain't your true home, 'cause your heart lies elsewhere."

"What is the second card?" Fairchild asked, curious in spite of herself. In college, she had researched tarot cards for her own interests. Reversed cards such as Facilier had shown her meant an opposite reading or diminished energy of the original.

"You drew the Eight of Cups for the present. You wanna leave your home and the people you've known all your life. And more, you wanna defy your designated role as wife and mother, to go to work as a man does, and live free. I knew there was somethin' different about you." He winked at her, so fast Fairchild was uncertain she had really seen it. "The Eight of Cups has another readin', that of discoverin' true love."

Fairchild snorted under her breath. "I doubt that one applies."

"Touché, ma chère. Few men are brave enough to take an independent woman to wife."

"The third card must represent the future, then," Fairchild said. "What outcome does it predict?"

"Ah..." Facilier grinned at her over the cards and leaned back. "The energies you were directin' at the cards were so faint, I thought at first that you didn't believe."

Fairchild wondered how she could explain without offending him. She did want to know what Facilier would read from the third card, but not because she believed it was true or would help her get home. It was like disagreeing with the premise of a literary article, yet still reading it from beginning to end. And in this case, though the writer's claims were preposterous, his presentation was utterly compelling. Hypnotic, whispered a voice in her mind, before it fell silent again, frightened at its own daring.

Fairchild's heart beat a little faster. "Tell me," she whispered.

At that moment, heavy footsteps, those of booted feet, echoed off the nearby building. Fairchild and Facilier turned toward Chartres Street. A chill ran through Fairchild's stomach like a knife made of ice. They were a poorly-dressed colored man and Roland Fairchild's only daughter, together after business hours in the growing twilight. Depending on who saw them, this might not end well. She turned to warn Facilier, but he had vanished.

A subtle scent of incense lingered in the air, and fine dust lay on the cobblestones just in front of the bench.

Meanwhile, the figure in the dark entered the light. It was old Tony Boudreaux, a policeman Fairchild had known since she was small. "Hello, Miss Iris," he said. "You should be headin' on home. It's gettin' dark."

"Of course," Fairchild said. "I lost track of time. It is good of you to remind me."

Tony's smile crinkled the corners of his deep blue eyes, a strange paradox of youth and age.

Fairchild rose from the bench slowly, searching the edge of Jackson Square for any sign of Facilier. "Did you lose somethin'?" Tony asked.

Fairchild smiled with sad affection. Tony was one of the few truly guileless men in the city of New Orleans. "No sir."

"How 'bout I see you to the streetcar? Don't want ole Rolly to worry about you."

"Thank you. Father will be very grateful."

Fairchild took Tony's arm, and together they left the afternoon behind and spoke of the past, which never really dies in this city of sinners and saints.

Three days later, Fairchild found herself doubting she had ever spoken to Facilier, but for the card he had given her. Attempting to find him, she had walked her shoes practically to tatters in the French Quarter, even daring to venture through scandalous places like Bourbon Street. Her efforts had rewarded her nothing, not even a whiff of incense.

While a stroll around the city might have been charming in fall or spring, summer had turned the air still as a cemetery. Humidity hung so thick, Fairchild felt she waded through a ripe mist that magnified the smells of the city: oysters rotting in trash barrels, alcohol, vomit, and oppressively sweet magnolias.

Finally, Fairchild hid from the sun's ferocity under the tent-like roof of Café du Monde. She was an island, deserted and unmarked in a lively sea of dirty-faced working men, their families, and painters and musicians from the Square that ebbed and flowed around her. Occasionally a snatch of story would wash up at her table. Though her fingers were swollen thick, Fairchild began her answer to Eve's letter. She felt less alone doing so.

"Tell our friends that I miss them terribly, and you, too, of course, my love. I watch the post each day for a letter from California, anything to give me hope -" Fairchild inhaled sharply several times. A strange, subtle scent, very like incense, teased her nostrils. The frying beignets and cafe au lait masked it so well, she was almost uncertain she smelled it. After all, her mind had fooled her many times during her search. Likely it was just residual scent clinging to a fortune teller's clothes.

Then a hand settled on her shoulder. A voice as rich as chocolate liqueur purred into her ear. "I heard you've been lookin' for me, ma chère."

The fine hairs on Fairchild's arms jumped to attention. "You," she whispered.

Facilier chuckled at the muddled emotions he read on her face. "I hope you'll forgive my sudden disappearance the other night. I'd have seen you to the street car, but…! While you are safe with old Tony, I can't say the same for me." He set a plate of beignets at the center of the table, and, with a flourish of his long arm, pulled a seat back.

"That's past," Fairchild said, briskly to communicate her displeasure.

Facilier gestured at the plate of beignets. "I still feel rude. Please, help yourself."

Initially, Fairchild reached for the French donuts without thinking. She paused just as their warmth curled around her fingertips. When she had begun her search, she had sought Facilier outside Jackson Square. The tarot readers she'd asked were unanimous in their response to her questions: Stay away from the Shadowman. He's trouble. Fairchild's stomach snarled its protest of her caution.

"Is somethin' wrong?" Facilier took the top square of fried pastry and powdered sugar and bit it in half.

"There's so much I don't know," Fairchild answered.

"Yes indeed." Facilier finished the last of the beignet. "Startin' with whether you can trust me."

"You can hardly blame me," she retorted, not understanding why she felt so defensive. "The French Quarter is –"

"Full of riffraff. A young woman alone would make easy prey for them."

Fairchild gasped. Facilier had repeated Amelia's nagging almost verbatim. Though from his mouth, it sounded like a delectable invitation to danger.

As Fairchild gaped, Facilier added, "I have only my guarantee that these beignets are delicious and harmless." Facilier gave her a winning smile. "If you don't have one, it's your loss. But it's unwise not to eat all day, even in this heat." So saying, he made a second beignet disappear.

Fairchild's stomach twisted into knots as he spoke. He might have guessed her hunger from the way her stomach was carrying on. And any mother might have said the things Amelia had. Coincidence was all it was.

Wasn't it?

He had started the third beignet. It was now or never. She sighed heavily and took up the fourth. The powdered sugar turned to syrup in her mouth. A flush exploded through her famished cheeks.

"Now ain't that a whole lot better?"

"Yes," she murmured. A new warmth that had nothing to do with sugar flooded her face.

Facilier lowered his voice so that Fairchild had to lean closer to hear him. "I can help you, Iris Fairchild. Readin' the future is only part of my powers. I can also...change it 'round, you might say."

"Is that the 'dreams made real' part on your card?"

"Yes. You know your own situation." Facilier pushed the empty plate to one side. His eyes blazed into Fairchild, stripped away her education, breeding, and passions until only her desire to escape New Orleans remained. "How many afternoons will you let slip away while you knock at doors in this men's world, where the most progressive ones still think a woman's place is in the kitchen or tendin' the children?"

"I hate it here," Fairchild whispered. Suddenly Café du Monde and Facilier trembled. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief.

"California won't wait." His voice held no pity. "But I know you don't believe me."

Fairchild's heart lurched above the deep cavern of yearning in her chest. If only he really did have the power! "No. I don't." To her irritation, the statement sounded like an apology. "And even if I did, payment…" Fairchild faltered. Only a lifetime of conditioning in parlor etiquette kept her seated as though encased in a rigid corset, her hands daintily useless in her lap. She longed to fly from the chair and "swoop about," as Amelia put it, for sheer frustration. "My parents cut me off until I 'come to my senses.'"

"Money ain't the only payment I accept."

A ball of ice materialized in Fairchild's stomach. She gripped the edges of the table with hands that had suddenly gone clammy, fought to stand in the midst of the whirlpool circling in her head. Somehow Fairchild broke free of the shadows. The shards of her shattered dignity pierced deeper into her with each step. Facilier was a man of devilish contradictions. One minute, he evinced a nearly seductive awareness of her dreams and aspirations, and in the next, he was no different from any other man who sought to push a woman down and keep her there, a slave to his pleasure.

"Fairchild, Fairchild!" Facilier had caught up to her. She slowed to a walk, her breath ragged. "You misunderstand!" he said, his tongue as silver as Judas's thirty scattered coins. Then he drew so close to her ear that his lips nearly brushed it. "I don't usually trade my powers for sexual favors."

"What?" All the scholarly detachment and open-mindedness Fairchild thought college had bestowed on her fled her like cowardly retainers. The curb she and Facilier occupied had become a stage, with the entire city audience to the indecencies uttered between them.

Facilier's laugh was low and as heavy with insinuation as the afternoon with humidity. "Think of how many poor women live in the Crescent City. Can you imagine if they came to my bed every time they wanted revenge for a petty somethin'? Why, the line would stretch around the entire Quarter."

It made perfect sense. Fairchild cringed. She should have thought of that, instead of opening herself to the further embarrassment of his explanation. Mortification stabbed her inside with a thousand swords.

Facilier's grin was all gators in the moonlight. "But if you really want to, I wouldn't be opposed. It'd have nothin' to do with business, though."

"No, no. I…I'm not like that."

Facilier shook his head. "A line every woman recites, ma chère. But it's a fine game, if you know how to play it."

"I mean, there is someone special to me in California." And there was. While Fairchild's male colleagues were the brothers she'd never had, Eve was special. With her, Fairchild had shared the passion she'd thought no man could ever kindle in her. Facilier, however, was different from the wealthy heirs of prominent New Orleans families and the threadbare, theory-obsessed Hamlets in college.

"Oh? That's a shame. I've never known love to thrive on distance and secrecy. But I'll be happy to…comfort you if it ends."

Somehow Facilier kept his charm, even mixing cruelty and licentious matters. Fairchild clamped down on the thought. "What are the terms of your repayment?" she started to ask to change the subject. As she did, the late afternoon sun emerged from the clouds and struck a hammerblow to her face. Fairchild closed her eyes. Beneath the lids, colored ribbons flashed and swam and squirmed.

"You alright?" Facilier said. "Your hands; they're tremblin'." As he reached for one, Fairchild snatched it away and lifted her head - it seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds - to him.

"Head...hurts," she managed to say.

Facilier caught her as she swayed; his slight build housed a startling strength. "I know a shady spot by the river. You'll feel better if you can cool off." He helped her through the white-hot cacophony of several streets to the lap of a sprawling oak tree. "Don't move," he said. "I'll be back." As suddenly as shadows melt in the dawn, he was gone.

Fairchild sat with her hands pressed tight against her head. She had a vague fear that if she removed them, the turbulence would burst free through her skull.

Perhaps Facilier was responsible! But how had he done it? Was it the beignet she had eaten against her better judgment? Maybe it really was her fault. Four years in California had made her forget that eating regularly fortified against the heat. She'd had headaches before, but never one so severe. It was difficult to think with the blood slamming against her temples and forehead like a bird repeatedly bashing itself against a glass pane.

"You gotta take better care of yourself, 'hear?" Facilier had returned with two mist-frosted glasses of lemonade.

Fairchild took the glass from him and stared at it. Perhaps Facilier had added something to it.

He laughed at her. "Still distrustin' me? It's not as if I'm askin' you to turn stones into bread or to murder your uncle. This is a gift, nothin' more."

Fairchild flushed, remembering a professor saying that if King Hamlet's ghost had been a devil, he would have gotten bored waiting for Hamlet to decide whether to murder Claudius. She hated to admit it, but she often found that she and the exasperating prince shared a similar overthinking indecision.

Steeling herself, Fairchild drank deep. Sweet and sour caught by turns on the tears in her throat. For the past four summers, she, Eve, and the Poets' Society had gathered one night a week, and Eve, ever the hostess, had brought lemonade squeezed from fruits gathered from the prolific trees in her family's backyard. Perhaps two thousand miles to the west, Eve and the others would reunite to raise their glasses of liquid sun to the desert stars.

Fairchild returned from her waking dream of California to discover that the season in her head had changed from suffocating summer to a winter morning clear as the song of a crystal bell. "What did you put in my lemonade?" she whispered.

"That's my secret."

Meeting Facilier's eyes made her pulse race and fragmented her thoughts, so she turned to the river, where the water-summoned wind made ripples in the brown water. "How strange," Fairchild murmured. "The river appears motionless, but the undercurrent is so swift, it is inescapable, even for the strongest swimmers."

"Wise ones would stay on the shore," Facilier said. "But life itself is a great river. All must enter the waters at some point."

"You are a poet, and more than you made yourself out to be." Fairchild whispered. "Did you study at a university?"

"No," Facilier said bitterly. "I visited the library three times a week for ten years, startin' when I was fourteen."

"But you could get a scholarship," Fairchild argued. Even colleagues' work she had admired seemed clumsy compared with his off-hand poetry mingled with philosophy.

Facilier crossed his arms. "Those fatcats who run the campuses don't want students from the margins. Even in California."

Fairchild bit her lower lip. All her colleagues had been white. Most had been male, all of good family. Even out in the free American West, the Chinese and the blacks were considered non-persons, machines to build the railroads and keep them in good repair.

"Do you have a favorite poet?" Fairchild asked. That she had fallen back on "parlor room reflexes" to escape the uncomfortable path this conversation was taking made her cringe.

"No," Facilier said. "Though I enjoyed many during my readings. They were my English teachers. Before I came to New Orleans, I spoke only French." Suddenly his eyes went distant, as though he reflected on years long past. "I uncovered a great deal of secret knowledge in the library."

A chill passed over Fairchild at those words; she was suddenly aware of the incense smell again. Perhaps it was the direction the wind was blowing.

"I made my choices," Facilier said at last.

Their conversation returned to lighter territory then, of poets and literary essays and Fairchild's own aspirations to write. Several hours passed while they sipped their lemonade and talked, savoring the ice faintly flavored with lemon.

Strangely, the afternoon had begun to resemble Fairchild's outings with her beau, those awkward picnics, boat excursions, and carriage rides, with a chaperone in silent attendance at all times. She had always resented the situation, as though the beau thought if they put on a good enough show, she would be persuaded to hand over the rest of her life for one of them to control. It was just a financial arrangement, as when vendors came from distant cities to wine and dine Roland in the hope of obtaining company's commitment to their product. Yet today, for the first time since meeting Eve, Fairchild found herself enjoying the outing. The passing of time was but a distant consideration.

At sunset, the shadows lengthened, and a river boat chugging by stopped and weighed anchor. When the sun had disappeared,

jazz music drifted through the sultry evening. "They must be dancin' onboard," Facilier murmured. "Music and moonlight at the white mansion on the water the water. And they are on the water." His brow furrowed as though he were thinking intently about something. At first Fairchild thought his spirits would be dampened by more bitterness about "fatcats." But to her surprise, Facilier rose, dusted himself off, and made a sweeping bow to her. "Dance with me, Fairchild!"

Fairchild hesitated. "I didn't think you danced." It had certainly never been her strong suit.

"With shadows and the dead, ma chère." So saying, Facilier caught Fairchild's hand in his as though it were a delicate bird in the cage of his long fingers. His lead was strong, though he did not pull; he compelled. She fell into step with him effortlessly. It was as though they flew. Then the music intensified, and Facilier was whipping her around for the curves. Her head whirled as she spun away from him, then found her body pressed tight against his when he drew her back.

The band played on, wrought their magic that turns hours to minutes. Fairchild lost her sense of time and indeed, of gravity, until lively tune upon livelier gave way to the tranquil symphony of evening. Facilier rocked them back and forth as though they were children learning the basics of rhythm.

For some time, they stood in this strange embrace, gazing into one another's shadow-darkened eyes.

"You dance well," he said, finally releasing her.

Outside the circle of his arms, Fairchild rubbed her own. Her breath came fast and shallow.

"Everyone has things they can't resist," Facilier said at last.

A great ripple pulsed against the banks of Fairchild's heart. A flush spread like a stain through her cheeks, even engulfing her ears.

"Music is one of mine."

He walked with her to the streetcar stop, arm in arm, though they found little to say.

As Fairchild rode the streetcar home, her mind returned to their dance, to his lithe arms around her, pressing her against his hardness, his tailcoat soft beneath her fingers. That entire afternoon, he had said nothing more of his ability to help her return to California. She had forgotten it until now. Yet the fact remained that everyone had their reasons for what they did. Her beau had wanted her hand in marriage so they could share in the Fairchild fortune one day. Vendors wanted Roland's patronage. What did Facilier want?

She couldn't be certain he was serious when he brought up…oh, it was too improper even to think of! She had kissed Eve, of course, had even experienced guilt when their letters became too passionate, but that was much less severe than the things he spoke of in such an offhand manner. And he perceived her skepticism regarding his powers. He couldn't think he would persuade her otherwise. Perhaps "business" and "pleasure," to use his terms, were both facades to conceal his real ambition, whatever that was.

"Don't worry, ma chère," she remembered him telling her before the streetcar left. His lips brushed her hand as lightly as flower petals. "We'll meet again."

That night, Fairchild dreamed she danced with Facilier again. After the music ended, he slid his arm around her shoulders and drew her after him into the French Quarter. Its narrow twisting roads were barely visible in the tiny flames of street lamps. Shadows stalked the bases of these tall poles and skittered along the bottoms of buildings like immense insects. The close air reeked of smoke, alcohol, and fetid garbage. To her dismay, Fairchild realized she was completely disoriented. "Where are we going?" she asked, with no small amount of apprehension.

Raucous, mirthless laughter boomed from one of the bars. Fairchild shrieked and grabbed Facilier's arm with her free hand, pressed herself closer against him.

"Don't be afraid, ma chère. I'm more dangerous than anythin' you'll stumble on out here."

Fairchild shivered, despite the stifling humidity.

"I thought we'd go to my Emporium now, get you started on your way back to California."

Moving as swiftly as shadows, themselves, Fairchild and Facilier came to a courtyard with a dead tree at its center. She glimpsed cracked pavement and peeling paint, walls in dire need of whitewash before...

The door.

Six-paneled, painted in several shades of purple, and framed in a lighter hue, it nonetheless was nearly lost in the corner and its shadows.

With each step closer, Fairchild's apprehension grew. Her stomach roiled as though she lurched on the edge of a great height. The hair on her arms and back of her neck stood rigid, petrified. Sweat ran down her palms.

The door swung open upon darkness deeper than darkness.

Yet Fairchild had not touched it; nor had Facilier. He stood behind her, grinning an unwavering skull grin. "It's just beyond the door," he told her in that fragmented way of dreams. "The source of my powers." He bowed. "Ladies first."

The next morning, Iris Fairchild woke to brilliant midmorning sunlight. Despite her headache the day before, she welcomed the sight. A recent dream she could not remember haunted her, but the sun would burn it off as it did the fog of early California mornings.

Two letters waited beside her breakfast, which the maid Mirette had allowed to grow cold. The first was a note from her mother, who had gone visiting that morning. Fairchild knew better than to read that one; Mirette's temperament tended to reflect that of her mistress. And anyway, Fairchild could predict what message the bold, fancy script held: a denunciation of her late return home the night before. It was still rather early for anyone in the household to know about her meetings with Facilier, but that was apt to change soon enough.

The other paper was contained in an envelope hand-painted in water colors: a letter from Eve! Fairchild carefully slit the seal and read with the hunger of a starving prisoner released into a banquet hall.

Eve's letter contained news from campus and California at large; love from their friends and colleagues who were disappointed that Fairchild could not be with them for the blooming of the jacarandas; their hopes that she would return to them soon.

In the next paragraph, Fairchild came to a part she had not expected. Several of their colleagues from the Poets' society were now employed and making a good living. When Eve had recounted Fairchild's predicament, they had told her about a David Rodriguez, who hoped to start his own publishing house by the first of the new year. Eve had included his contact information and urged Fairchild to write him straightaway.

"The jacarandas miss you, and so do I. Please write soon and let me know how you fare with Mr. Rodriguez." Fairchild read through Eve's closing line several times. No man, however charming, could write a love letter like that.

Nearly singing from euphoria, Fairchild threw on her clothes and burst outdoors. She would head down Chartres Street first to see if the new bookshop had opened. The paper in the window said that in addition to used and rare books, it would carry paper and writing things. Afterwards, she would spend the afternoon writing to David Rodriguez, and then to Eve.

Preoccupied with her plans and delightful anticipation, Fairchild seemed to reach the bookshop in no time at all.

As she entered, a man said in a deep drawl, "'Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,/ That would not let me sleep: methought I lay…'" At the counter, an enormous bespectacled white man stood reciting from the book in his hand.

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,  
>And praised be rashness for it, let us know,<br>Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,  
>When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us<br>There's a divinity that shapes our ends,  
>Rough-hew them how we will,-<p>

"Well-spoken, my lord Hamlet." Fairchild smiled. "Though you've traveled farther from Denmark and England, than even my philosophies can fathom."

"Well, hello there, young lady. You'd make a fine Horatio. A surprising one, too. I'd have expected you to make straight for those serial romances over there."

Fairchild laughed. "I'd hope after obtaining a Bachelor of Arts, my tastes wouldn't include sensational trash. Although," she added in a conspiratorial whisper, "those were the books I started reading from, so I can't completely condemn them."

He laughed. "I went through my share of adventures for a penny when I was young. Congratulations on your degree, by the way. Where did you study?"

Fairchild recounted her years in California. She learned in turn that he had grown up in Alabama and worked as a professor at Dartmouth until he retired and fulfilled his lifelong dream of running a bookstore.

"So you want ter go back West, eh? That's a shame."

"Why do you say that?"

"This shop is a lot to keep up by myself. I've hired boys from Tulane and even Loyola, but they didn't do a damn thing around here, pardon my language. They just read or came in late or hungover. You seem like an intelligent, motivated young lady. I could use the help of someone like you around here."

"I'd love to!" Fairchild said. "I won't be able to leave for California right away. I have to find a job first. Which reminds me…" And she told him about David Rodriguez and the letters she intended to write this afternoon.

"You are something, young lady. You know, last week, a man from England came to my shop. I suppose some dried-up professor from California might find his way here sometime. It's a long shot, but working here just might help you in unexpected ways."

"Why, that's true. But aren't you concerned with how your customers will feel about your employing a woman?"

"I think it's long overdue," he said. "Besides, this is my shop. They don't like it, they can leave."

"Well in that case, I'd like very much to work with you. Shall we shake on it?" Fairchild held out her hand.

"Young lady, you got yerself a deal." The large man grasped her small hand in his large one. "The name's Paul."

"Iris Fairchild. When can I start?"

"Let's make it tomorrow. Give you a chance to write those letters."

The next day, Fairchild started her work with Paul in earnest. She stayed so busy dusting books, learning the inventory, and meeting customers that she completely forgot about Facilier.

The following afternoon, the shop stayed empty. Paul suggested Fairchild take advantage of lull to sweep the floor. As Fairchild stirred up dust in the deserted aisles, she daydreamed about her letters in some bulging mail bag on the train headed West. Presently, her mind wandered to the letter she would write to Eve. There was enough poetry in the bookshop to inspire an entire season's worth of letters and poems. That was an advantage of working among the recorded thoughts of great minds; her writing sensibilities had come alive as never before.

Fairchild was enjoying her daydreams so much that she did not see the man at the end of the aisle until he moved. She shrieked and flung her arms into the air. Her broom toppled to the floor in a faint. Swaying from her fright, Fairchild rather expected to join it.

Familiar laughter reached Fairchild's ears. "Jumpin' at shadows, ma chère?"

Fairchild whirled around. What she had taken for a man was only a shadow, emaciated in figure, yet robust in darkness, tall, and dressed in a tailcoat and top hat.

Facilier himself emerged from around the corner. His shadow seemed to make way for him. It must have been an illusion of the light and the narrow aisles, Fairchild reassured herself.

"Word on the street is that there's a charming new assistant workin' here. They were right."

How many people, Fairchild wondered, had seen his broad grin, that gap between his teeth, before closing some ruinous deal?

"So this is where you've been hidin'. I thought you'd run off West without tellin' me."

"No."

"You givin' up? Gonna stay in Louisiana?"

"No, definitely not!" As she gave him the news from Eve's latest letter, Fairchild retrieved her broom and continued sweeping, at least until she found Facilier standing in her path.

"It'd be easier if you'd let me help you," he insisted.

"Yes, but it will mean more for me and for women like me if I do it myself."

Facilier chuckled at this. "Life is a great wheel of fortune, ma chère. You're nearin' the top. But what'll you do when you return to the bottom, and the wheel crushes everythin' dear to you?"

Paul's heavy footfalls thumped around the corner.

"My help can even your odds, but nothin' else," Facilier said.

"Is this man bothering you, young lady?" Paul said. Despite knowing her name, he insisted on addressing her this way.

"No," Fairchild answered.

Paul looked from Fairchild to Facilier as though he were uncertain whether to believe her.

"Well, I'll be seein' y'all," Facilier said. "Good afternoon, Fairchild, Paul Morrison."

Paul stared at Facilier's lithe back as he left. "Do I know you?"

But Facilier did not turn around. His shadow trailed behind him like a dark cape.

"Y'all sure have some characters in the Quarter," Paul remarked when the bell on the front door tinkled, indicating that Facilier had left. "I don't much like the feel of that man. You sure he didn't do somethin' inappropriate? I heard you scream."

"No, not at all," Fairchild hurried to reassure him. "He just startled me."

"Okay," Paul said, still somewhat hesitantly.

"His shadow startled me," Fairchild murmured as the floorboards groaned under Paul's weight. Despite the sweltering New Orleans summer heat, Fairchild suddenly felt chilled. Paul often complained that caves had better lighting than the dim store. The shadow Paul cast, and indeed, her own shadow beneath her feet was faint, fragmented from many dispersed lamps. How utterly unlike Facilier's, which had been as dark as a thunderhead, seeming so solid that she had mistaken it for a person.

To soothe her jangled nerves, Fairchild took up her broom and continued her sweeping with redoubled vigor. Even so, she could not shake her growing conviction that Facilier was connected with something uncanny, and she wasn't entirely certain she wanted to find out what.

The following week, Paul left Fairchild in charge of the book shop. A dear colleague of his at Dartmouth had passed away, and Paul wished to pay his respects. A series of lingering thunderstorms kept the shop mostly empty. Fairchild didn't really mind; it gave her time to read and to dream. The days passed without incident, until midway through the week, when she encountered Facilier again.

The rain had fallen without stopping for the entire day and into the evening; its steadiness was more characteristic of autumn or winter than summer. Fairchild locked up and started her walk through the balmy evening to the streetcar. This kind of rain, she found, quieted the quarter the way falling snow silenced a winter's night. In the jazz and general bustle, she could not usually appreciate softer sounds from the second floor galleries like wind chimes or the rustle of ferns in their hanging pots.

The summer torrents might wash the Crescent City clean of its dirt ten thousand times, Fairchild reflected, but its sins and corruption would still remain. She paused to admire a pool of molten gold in the gutters from rainwater mingled with lantern light.

Suddenly the raindrops' whisper-soft touch ceased. Fairchild looked up into the nearly inscrutable darkness of a black umbrella.

"Good evenin', ma chère." A single step, and he stood at her back, practically embracing her from behind.

The umbrella, Fairchild realized, was only meant for one person. Heat spread through her face. "I didn't expect to see you again."

"Oh? Does that mean you weren't thinkin' of me? I'm hurt."

"Why would I think of you?" Fairchild cursed the catch in her voice after she had nearly finished the statement in a nonchalant tone.

Facilier placed his hand on one side of her face. "Have you ever kissed in the rain?"

Adrenaline shot through Fairchild's veins. She fought to keep her breathing even. "I…I…" she sputtered. I haven't, she realized. Normally it wouldn't have mattered, but with Facilier asking, it seemed suddenly very important. Fairchild thought back to the kisses her beau had given her, chaste affairs because of the givers' inexperience and the presence of the chaperone. Even the times she had kissed Eve, the California skies were usually clear and always dark.

"I thought not." His condescension was infuriating yet intoxicating, all at the same time. "It's a…poetic experience. At first, it feels a little like drops of rain on your lips, or sometimes kisses on every inch of exposed skin. And as it progresses, well, there're some experiences which words can only recall; they can't create."

As his voice crept through her like sweet burning poison, Fairchild saw the Quarter as though for the first time. The winding cobblestone streets were all but deserted this evening. There was no one to see them together, no policemen to stop the tall man from…anything. Fairchild's head reeled from the realization. "I'd think you would be more hurt that I refused your help."

"You'll find you need it soon enough," Facilier said. "And since I am sendin' you West, I want to…enjoy you how I can…for now." So saying, Facilier pulled her close.

Fairchild melted against his body, her heart thudding so loud, she wasn't sure she would hear thunder if it cracked overhead. Facilier's eyes mocked her with their mutual desire, dared her. She stood on tiptoe and met his challenge, but quickly found herself swept away. His lips devoured hers, leading as cunningly as he had danced, but with far more ferocity. Then his tongue sought entrance to her mouth. Fairchild opened to him, her chest heaving with longing; the more she had of him, the more she wanted.

A thousand rain-wrought kisses caressed Fairchild's hair and neck. Water dripped from Facilier's top hat brim to her face, turned to wine shared between both their mouths. With deft hands, Facilier made a languorous survey of her body through her clothes; their wetness made his burning touch seem somehow closer.

Then Facilier drew Fairchild under a store awning. The windows were dark. He lifted her so she sat atop the low storefront windowsill and loosened the topmost buttons of her dress, freeing her throat from its prison of cloth and lace. His lips brushed against her chin before drifting to her neck. At first his kisses there fell as light as a drizzle until, quite unexpectedly, he seized her flesh with his lips and teeth.

A storm crashed through Fairchild's core. Though the wages of sin were death, she had never felt so alive pursuing it.

Fairchild gripped a handful of Facilier's wild coarse hair in one hand and his shoulder with the other. Without much success, she attempted to suppress her gasps and moans, the shudders that overtook her as Facilier enjoyed her vulnerable spots.

At length, Facilier drew back just enough to look in her eyes and smirked. The fire he had lit in her was raging, and he knew it. "What say, Fairchild?" he murmured. "I live a few streets away." He moved his lips to her ear, whispered something in French she could not translate, though the decadence of his voice and the situation provided all the understanding she needed: he would make it a night she would never forget.

Fairchild sagged against the dark glass, her breathing ragged.

Facilier chuckled, certain of his triumph. He slid his arm around Fairchild's shoulder, guided her off the window ledge and back into the rain.

Fairchild followed with an increasing sense that she merely dreamed. They turned down one street and then another, arm in arm as though they were already lovers. As Fairchild's intoxication from his kiss faded, an unsettling feeling crept over on her; hadn't she walked these streets with him before? No, that wasn't possible! Nonetheless, she was depressingly aware of how shabby the buildings and their courtyards were becoming. The insurmountable gulf of their class difference loomed before her. Roland would kill Facilier, and possibly her, for the kisses alone, Fairchild knew with chilling certainty.

"Wait!" Fairchild stopped. Her reservations were gathering momentum. What of Eve? They had not promised to wait for one another, despite parting with a whispered "I love you." And yet, Eve had written to her consistently all these months, and tenderly. While Fairchild desired Facilier, she did not love him. Not as she loved Eve. And most of all…

Facilier turned back to her.

"I can't come with you," she said at last. "If there were to be a child..." she trailed off. An iron fist gripped her entire being. "I could never return to California." Her clashing desires drained Fairchild of words and the power to articulate the many other things she wanted to say. "I cannot take that chance."

Facilier released her hand. "You wanna return that much?"

"Yes." Fairchild bowed her head and did not watch him disappear behind the curtain of pouring rain.

July 5, 1923

My dearest Eve,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits.

For myself, I am the happy bearer of good news. After nearly a month of waiting, I have received a reply from Mr. David Rodriguez, to whom you suggested I write. Mr. Rodriguez, as you may recall, is starting a publishing house that will print, publish, and circulate guides to the American West, with particular concentration on California. For my part, I think such publications will be very useful for Americans who hope to come West but do not know anything about California and the area. I rather believe Mr. Rodriguez would have made a good member of the Poets' Society if he had attended our university; he has a strong creative vision.

Funding for this publishing house will originate from Mr. Rodriguez's father, which I note with some scorn, but of course, this sort of thing can't really be helped at first. Eventually, the money we earn will run the house. Mr. Rodriguez's friend from his school years has already agreed to help him with the business aspects.

In addition to his infectious enthusiasm about this project, Mr. Rodriguez has proven refreshingly progressive. He wishes to hire a young, yet well-educated staff to help with his publishing house, a staff that, in his words, will certainly include women.

And so, my darling, with luck and the grace of God, I may yet return to California soon. Tell all our friends in the Poets' Society that I'm thinking of them fondly. Perhaps you shall raise a glass of lemonade to me when you gather at our spot under the acacia tree.

Love,

Iris

August 14, 1923

Eve, sunset of my heart,

I have tremendous news! Mr. Rodriguez has all but confirmed that I shall be working for him. Let me start from the beginning.

Following a business trip in New York, Mr. Rodriguez came to New Orleans to meet me. Mother thought he was a beau I had kept secret from her and greeted him as such, which was rather embarrassing. Nonetheless, we quickly overcame the resultant awkwardness, and Mr. Rodriguez was very impressed with my travels and studies, which I related to him in full in Mother's parlor. Afterwards, I invited him to the bookshop to meet Paul, who, God bless the man, gave me a glowing recommendation. We three passed much of the afternoon discussing the East Coast publishing houses and authors and works they sponsor. I had no idea Paul was so knowledgeable about printing. I learned such a great deal this afternoon; it was as though I had returned to college.

Afterwards, Mr. Rodriguez and I enjoyed a meal - his last frolic with Creole cuisine, as he put it - and he explained to me that the first stages of his publishing house are now complete. Though no few additional tasks remain, he felt confident enough to explain the work I would be doing for him. I shall have the opportunity to try a bit of everything, it seems: reviewing and selecting submissions; corresponding with the authors; revising the pieces; even printing, which is rather mechanical and practical for what I am accustomed to, but I shall learn it all!

To all appearances, it will be the perfect job! How wonderful it will be to labor in work I enjoy in that place I have come to call home. And best of all, our work will make a difference. It will educate people outside the region and perhaps inspire them to make their home there with us on the last of the frontier. Perhaps those already in California will experience a greater appreciation of their home for having read our books.

I fully expect to return to California by the New Year. It is a marvelous idea you had, for us to greet 1924 with lemonade. I smile now whenever I see lemonade vendors in the French Quarter. I suppose many would consider lemonade an absurd substitute for champagne, but I find the symmetry perfectly fitting. If my good fortune continues to favor me, I almost dare to promise I will be at your side for Christmas.

These days, you feel so near if I close my eyes. Sometimes I can see your smooth, dark hair shine in the lamplight as I comb it. Or we wander the seashore with our cold hands twined together, and I kiss the salt from your lips.

My heart is with you.

Iris

September 20, 1923

Dear Eve,

Something is dreadfully wrong with Father. I woke last night to footsteps and voices in the corridor outside my room. When I opened the door, I saw Doctor Arcineaux. Before I went to work, the doctor held a meeting with Mother and me. In fear for Father's health, he stayed the entire night, and though he gave the news as gently as he could, he is not optimistic. Father has become so weak these past few months. In my excitement to return West, I scarcely noticed until now.

I must confess, there is little love between Father and me. Oil and business are his gods, except during the holidays that necessitate those dreadful family gatherings. If I had been born a boy, I know Father would have taught me everything so I might succeed him. As it is, I hardly know him. I do not expect that to change, even though Mr. Clement is now fulfilling the duties that were Father's all his life. Mother's life, too, continues as normal, except for Doctor Arcineaux's visits.

Out of respect (a poor substitute for real emotion), I have decided to delay my return to California until Father has passed, though I rather dread the inevitable long nights that autumn brings. Sometimes I feel as if the shadows are closing in. My situation calls to mind Hopkins's poem "Spring and Fall." In this autumn and that of Father's life, I find my heart heavy, knowing that death awaits me, as it does all.

How different they are, autumn here and in California. I remember days the sky was so blue it seemed purple… May I see it soon! You must write twice as many poems about those exquisite California days so it seems I am there, too.

Love,  
>Iris<p>

October 13, 1923

Eve,

With great sorrow I write to you today, the first week after Father's passing. His suffering has ended; if only his survivors might say the same.

I regret that this brief letter contains so much unpleasantness, but I have a rather desperate favor I must ask you. I have not heard from Mr. Rodriguez since August. Can you please look for him, and should you find him, implore that he write to me? I am nearly out of my mind with worry.

How I miss you,

Iris

October 21, 1923

Eve,

My dear one, I fear that my time on fortune's heights has ended, and I fall to misery and despair in the pits surrounding her high peaks. For today, I received my long-desired letter from Mr. Rodriguez. I opened it with the desperate hope of a prisoner who finds her cell door is unexpectedly thrown open. However, an executioner waited for me in the wan morning light. Mr. Rodriguez has been forced to abandon his publishing house on account of money problems. It seems that he failed on multiple occasions to take the business advice of his friend, believing that passion and good intentions will always result in a good outcome. He meant only the best. But the fact remains that his zeal has been the house's undoing, and his father will pledge no further funds.

To add to my difficulties, Mother has made it clear that I am no longer welcome in what has become her house. I have a small sum put aside consisting of my earnings from Paul. It will buy me a bed in a boarding house somewhere. I still must find one...how tired I feel from battling these united miseries. My time in the bookshop with Paul also draws to an end. I must find work that pays more. Although Paul would help me through this difficult time, he lives in near penury, much as Thoreau when he resided at Walden. I cannot burden him with my problems. He has already given me a great deal considering how little he has.

The coward in me whispers that I could solve everything by abandoning my ideals and getting married. Though I am disgraced, and I have refused no few beau, there are many men in New Orleans. Even a middleclass man could save me from my predicament. But I will not yield to that course until no other options remain to me. How I despise the many ways that men have made us prisoners!

Do you remember Doctor Facilier, who I met in early June? The first evening I knew him, he read my fortune with three tarot cards. While the past and the present provided an uncanny narration regarding my position, he never did show me what the third card, the outcome. I have pondered it frequently in these dark days. What was it?

This part, I have not yet disclosed to you: Facilier claimed to have the power to alter the future. You know that I am challenged to believe in our Lord God, his angels, and saints. Magic, too, defies a rational explanation. Yet now, in my misery, I wonder if there is something he might do.

I hope you will forgive my ramblings, dear one. Grief, I find, fragments what I wish to say. I hope that in time, I shall be myself again. But I fear that it will take months, if not years.

Please, Eve, if you know anyone in California who will let me work for them… I will attempt any position! How my heart aches for the blue California skies and their bounty of sunshine in these dark days!

Yours,

Iris

How strange it was, Fairchild reflected as she stood in the doorway of her room. For almost twenty years, this bedroom had been hers. Today she would move out, and, in all likelihood, no sign of her would remain.

Except for her two plainest dresses, there was little she wished to carry out of this life into her new one.

In the hallway, dust motes danced in the golden afternoon light. Tall shadows, those harbingers of the long night, reached across the periphery. Really, she would be glad to leave. The empty feeling in the house that had grown stronger as Roland became weaker had become nearly intolerable. She and Amelia were two small people in this great lonely void, a forest of heavy carved furniture and antiques. How useless it all seemed in the face of this ephemeral, constantly changing thing that was life.

Cloying flowers of sickly hue, as unnatural as the awkward condolences at the funeral filled the parlor. An unsmiling portrait of Roland overlooked them. The graveside had been more cheerful, Fairchild reflected.

"Miss Iris," someone whispered.

A dark hand waved to her from the dining room. It was their cook Celia, holding out two bundles wrapped in bright cloth. "These're for you. A lil somethin' to get you started on your way."

"Thank you," Fairchild murmured. The aroma of fresh bread and spices rose from one. She took a deep breath of the comforting scent. In the other, she felt cylindrical outlines, most likely preserves.

"So this is it." Amelia left the fireplace, where she was rearranging the funeral flowers.

"Yes," Fairchild answered.

"You are free to go whore yourself." Amelia all but bared her teeth.

"What?" Fairchild started to say just as Amelia slapped her in a blur of jeweled rings and long shell-pink nails.

"Do you think I don't know about that colored man? The entire city has seen you unchaperoned with him at all hours of the night! You've already squandered a fortune and the best years of your life! Education, indeed! And now, no respectable man will ever wed you! What must Roland, God bless his saintly soul, think of you?"

Fairchild backed away from Amelia's stabbing, accusing finger.

"Whore! Damned whore!" Amelia's voice rose in pitch and volume so that she practically screamed, "It should have been you!" She fell back, gasping. The servants gathered around to fan their mistress, to revive her with water and whiskey.

Fairchild stared at this screaming, writhing creature her mother frequently became when their neighbors and other important society members were out of sight and earshot. A growing sense of unreality crept over her. In the past, Amelia had used these displays of temper and cruel words to inflict torture, to get her way. Today, Fairchild saw it as though she were someone else. The frantic feelings she once harbored, the need to appease her, hatred of her slavery to Amelia's whims, none answered Amelia's call this time.

"I won't forget you, Celia. Thank you." Fairchild hugged the bundles to herself tighter. Then, summoning all the strength she had, Fairchild left the room with her head held high, her eye unwavering.

The massive wooden door shut her old life behind her. Fairchild was uncertain whether Amelia had allowed herself the honor or commanded a servant to do it. But the closer she came to the gate with its wrought-iron flowers and leaves, the less it mattered.

In the still-unreachable West, the sun burned red. Many nights, Fairchild had cried at the sight, longed to chase the sunset back home. But after the scene with Amelia, a new seed had taken root in her heart. This afternoon, she had lost everything. Yet somehow, by strangest circumstance, she was free, free as she had never been before, even in California.

The next month of Fairchild's life bore such little resemblance to the previous years that she almost began to wonder if what had passed were a dream. She chose a boarding house just off of Bourbon. The low price was reflected in its tenants: coarse and loud; they rather scared her. Fights and yelling were common, especially on weekends.

Her new job was not nearly so onerous as she had feared. With Paul's help, Fairchild found a local school that needed a teacher. Because the position was only parttime, and Fairchild needed more pay to keep her place in the boarding house, she volunteered to work with the maids when she was not teaching. The headmaster had raised his eyebrows at that but allowed it because he had known Roland.

When the more established teachers saw Fairchild toiling at her maid duties, they shook their heads and murmured about the screeching halt the world was surely approaching. "Don't you understand it's not respectable to work among colored folks?" several warned her.

But Fairchild cared nothing for respectability; there was money to be made, even if her maid work was much harder than teaching and her wages were significantly less, derived from the colored payscale. She came to think of herself as a traveler or sorts, moving between the white world and the colored world. To her joy, she found friends in both: young, old, and the rare individual her age.

Fairchild considered it a tremendous blessing for work to turn out mostly pleasant. But it did not last all day. Could she have slept in the school building, Fairchild would have jumped at the chance.

To escape the boarding house for a few hours, Fairchild visited the river. The nearness of winter meant the temperature was often cold and unpleasant, but it was better than braving what she came to think of as the perpetual hurricane. On good evenings, Fairchild wrote a few lines of poetry.

One night, Fairchild decided to walk along the river, partly to keep warm and partly to keep awake. The trek brought her to the train tracks, which resurrected vivid memories of summer now entombed.

Not far from here was the place where she and Facilier had danced that strange night. He must be quite the charlatan, she thought with a little laugh. He had almost everyone in the boarding house convinced that his Voodoo could guarantee success in money or love, and even kill.

Perhaps his prediction that happiness in California would not be hers had been correct. But the trusting ignorance of the boarding house occupants reassured Fairchild that at least he really could do nothing.

A light beamed bright out of the twilight, and the ground trembled. In a few moments, a train would arrive.

"You catchin' this train, lady?"

Fairchild started and looked down at a young black boy. Beneath his newsboy hat, his face was already that of a man, with eyes that had seen much.

"No. I wish I were," Fairchild said.

The boy crossed his arms against the cold; she saw that he wore no coat over his filthy white shirt and worn overalls.

He was going to jump the train.

"Do you know where you're going?" she said.

"West," he said.

"That's right. If you travel far enough, you will come to California. It is a good place." Her throat tightened.

Metal wheels clattered against metal and wood. Fairchild shivered in the train's wind wake as it careened past.

The boy ran at the train and leaped. For an instant, he hung suspended in the air. His arm shot out; his calloused child's palm gripped the end ladder. He swung up into the car.

As Fairchild watched the cars vanish into the gray and black horizon, she seemed to feel herself growing smaller. Before morning, the boy would reach Baton Rouge. In a few days, who knew?

Her black dress whispered against her ankles as she considered the strange life he led.

He cared so little where the winds of circumstance brought him that he did not even know how far west he was going. Wherever he roamed, Fairchild was certain he enjoyed the company of fellow transients who recognized the bonds of kinship and friendship for the ephemeral facades they were. And more, the security that had never been his of a full purse and a home did not trouble him.

Nonetheless, he would probably end his days in an orange orchard or some other manual labor, twenty years early or so from overwork.

Fairchild grappled within herself. Money was indeed her golden chain. Even worse, it was not the only one. If only she had the courage to throw off what she had thought she needed her entire life! But even considering it, fear constricted Fairchild's insides. Her first instinct was to despise her weakness, to berate herself for how weak her passion had become. And she did.

But then a question arose that silenced her self-condemnation. Her white skin had destined her for an easier life than that boy's. And yet, his freedom far exceeded hers. How, how could that be so?

The night 1923 would pass into 1924, Fairchild slipped away from the New Year's revelry to her usual place by the river. The spot had begun to hold an almost mystical fascination for her. Though she always overlooked the same place, the waters and river traffic were ever-flowing and changing. Tonight several river boats drifted by; the lights strung through their rails made them seem as a vessels wrought from frost. In the still night, music clear and fine as crystal drifted across the water. Fairchild could not see to write, but she felt no need to. The ethereal image of light vessels on dark waters would fill her memory and become words later. Wait, the night seemed to say. Hush. Be still.

"I thought you wanted to be home by the New Year, ma chère."

Facilier leaned on his walking stick and regarded her as though he expected something. He had not changed, Fairchild realized: still slender, almost waif-like, clad in the same suit he'd worn in the summer.

"Are you here to mock me?"

"Why, no! Your best interests always have the first place in my heart. An' I figured you'd listen now that your pride's been worn down."

"I don't have time for parlor tricks, Facilier," Fairchild retorted, on her guard despite her disbelief.

"The year's dyin', Fairchild," he said as if he hadn't heard. "They'll take the lights down soon..."

Adrenaline jolted through Fairchild as his words sank in. How could Facilier know the effect the darkness after Christmas had on her?

A crack ran down her wall of skepticism. Feeling contemptuous of the poor, ignorant women in the boarding house was so easy when she was away from Facilier. In the months since she had seen him, Fairchild had forgotten how overwhelming he could be. In fact, it was decidedly uncomfortable to meet Facilier here in the dark while the rest of the Crescent City's attention was turned to the approaching year.

"And Eve'll have to drink her lemonade alone. How long is it since you've written one another?"

Fairchild rose, alarmed now. She had never told him Eve's name. "You leave her out of this!"

Facilier circled her, a vulture drawing nearer with every pass. "I'm surprised she ain't helpin' you out West, considerin' how you feel about each other. Or was that love for a season, only?"

"Someone like you could never understand how we feel about each other!" Fairchild shot back. She always told herself she was too busy to write, that there was no good news, that she really couldn't afford it. But did Eve still think of her? There had been no letters from her since Fairchild sent her the boarding house address.

"S'pose I told you she's to be happily married in the spring, well on her way to forgettin' you? It cuts both ways, doesn't it?" Facilier slid his arms around Fairchild, rested his chin where her shoulder met her neck. "Things she doesn't know. Things you don't know."

For years, Fairchild had known that she couldn't keep Eve all to herself indefinitely. Eve loved children, had often talked to Fairchild how she wanted a baby. Though she and Fairchild often dreamed of collaborating on beautiful, long-lasting works, poetry and paintings that they would call their heirs, it was not inconceivable that she had put that dream aside. It had been so long since they'd seen one another! Yet foreknowledge had no power to dull the blow. Facilier's whisper was salt burning in Fairchild's still-unhealed wound.

With her fists clenched against the pain, Fairchild tore free of Facilier and darted through the darkness. From conversations overheard in the boarding house, she seemed to remember that hallowed ground would bar entry to the Shadowman.

St. Louis Cathedral was not far.

The white spires rose, lit in tiny yellow lights like frozen fireflies. In the silence of the New Orleans winter night, her ragged breathing and pounding heart sounded like an apocalypse. She shot across Jackson Square. The doors, praise God, were open!

Fairchild burst inside; momentum carried her halfway through the candlelit interior. She leaned against a pew gasping for breath. The thought of well-dressed old widows, their service interrupted by her stampede of an entrance almost drew a laugh from her. But save for its usual assembly of plaster and painted angels and saints, the church was strangely empty.

"I don't think you know who your real friends are, Fairchild."

Fairchild screamed, attempted to dash away, and landed on the black and white marble tiles. "This is hallowed ground…"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but that's just superstition. As it happens, I enjoy churches. And certain passages in the Bible have exquisite poetry in them." From the impossibly small pockets of his jacket, Facilier filled his palm with dust and blew it into a violet cloud.

The candlelight began to shimmer and blur as though Fairchild saw it through a rain-streaked window. Facilier's incense filled the air, engulfed her.

When Fairchild's head cleared, they were no longer in the basilica, but beside the ocean. Waves crashed to shore with a sound like distant thunder, their foamy edges ringed with lace woven from pearlescent bubbles.

"This is impossible," Fairchild whispered.

"Nothin' is impossible for my friends on the other side," Facilier said.

"Voodoo," Fairchild whispered, wondering if this were a dream from which she would soon awaken. "I can't believe it." For a long while, Facilier said nothing, and Fairchild let her senses run wild, gorge themselves on this reality born of his magic.

Though winter reigned in the Crescent City, Facilier had brought her to the California coast in high summer. The sun drenched Fairchild in golden kisses. At the top of the hill, sunflowers raised their cheeks; he had enough for all. Fairchild kicked off her shoes and stockings and buried her bare feet in the sand as though she meant to take root. When she finally emerged, the chill water and brisk breeze were a delicious contrast on her skin.

Always, a strange sadness lingers over the sea, Fairchild's muse intoned. Perhaps it is in the cries of the gulls, or the way every breath tastes of recent tears.

She wished for paper to scribble the idea down, indeed to record this voodoo experience.

Nothing, no matter how minute, had been forgotten. In fact, everything Fairchild experienced seemed somehow to take special consideration of her own memories.

Such power was not to be believed. Yet here it was before her. Fairchild said nothing, turning instead to Facilier.

"What a sight!" he said as he watched the ever-shifting waters. "It's like the edge of the world, so remote from everything. It's the perfect place for a new beginnin'. In so many ways, the West is like a child. You could raise it, Iris Fairchild, with your knowledge, not the ignorance of centuries of traditional men's rule. That's why you can never achieve your goals in the Crescent City. It's still a bastion of the old world ruled by the nobility and the church. It's brittle, set in its ways."

He was right, Fairchild realized with the shock of a suddenly-remembered dream. How strange it was to hear her thoughts from his lips.

With impossible speed, fog rolled in from the ocean, obliterating everything in a dense gray shroud. Although she hated to be so close to him, Fairchild grabbed Facilier's arm. She knew nothing of magic; suppose she should be lost in this illusion?

The fog cleared to reveal rows and rows of trees, their branches heavy with oranges. As the ever-present California breeze rustled the waxy leaves, it donned a perfume of citrus and green. Fairchild's mouth watered at the sight of the oranges, fiery globes sometimes clustered together five at a time. Nestled in high boughs, the last of the orange blossoms shone like white stars. Yet for all the beauty of the scene…

"They remind me of the South's plantations," Fairchild murmured. Part of her knew this pinprick in the joy of experiencing familiar, treasured places was important, but before she could articulate why, Facilier was speaking rapidly.

"Oh, they're startin' the same old cycle, but there's still time to steer them right. Get 'em readin' your ideas, those miners and farmers and housewives and their children. It's in your power to nurture the West so you can be valued as an individual, not for the house you keep, or the number of children you rear, or the man who walks you 'round on his arm."

Fairchild's chest ached, as though with sheer will she could make this dream be reality. And how close she seemed with the very California oranges themselves only a jump away. But she was forgetting something, losing herself, though she was no longer quite sure how.

She shut her eyes, trying to remember, and when she opened them, she discovered that she stood outside Robertson Hall. The acacia tree under which the Poets' Society met was crowned with golden flowers, though they were only a spark before the violet fire that engulfed the jacarandas.

"What would it be like, Fairchild?" Facilier said. "To put your own name on your books and see them sell, instead of creatin' a male persona to take credit that no one would ever give to you! This is the land of possibilities, Fairchild! Here! Anywhere else, you're wastin' your life!"

Fairchild had no answer. He was right. She caught a jacaranda petal in her hand, contemplated its delicate beauty. With some sorrow, she remembered her thwarted promise to Eve. She had not returned with the jacarandas, nor with the New Year. But it was not too late...

As Fairchild thought, the evening sun took on a strange cast that reminded her of candlelight. And somehow, the jacaranda petal was gone from her hand. Fairchild thought she had dropped it until she looked up and saw the cathedral. Her heart twisted into tight knots. All she had seen was an illusion. The knowledge was like walking through utter darkness and crashing into a brick wall.

"Now do you understand, ma chère? Without my help, you'll never get out of this city, not as long as you live."

Fairchild sank to her knees and wept. She cried for Roland and the relationship they had never cultivated; for Eve, thousands of miles away, soon to be unreachable if Facilier spoke truth; for the dying year; for pennies she pinched but still spent too fast; for the poetry she could not afford to publish; for women everywhere bound in invisible chains.

When she could cry no more, Facilier held out a handkerchief to her. Fairchild wiped the mess from her face. Then Facilier's arm was around her, helping her to stand. "Just shake my hand, and you can have the happiness you've denied yourself for so long."

Fairchild opened her hand, but before she could raise it to meet Facilier's, the ground opened beneath her. The cathedral was gone, and she had returned to Roland's graveside at the family plot in Baton Rouge. At first she thought it was another of Facilier's illusions. But her mind was clear as it had not been in the visions he had shown her. Amelia stood beside her, clad entirely in black. Fairchild watched herself drop flowers on her father's coffin. How well she remembered this day. Behind them, Roland's extended family stood in attendance, countless cousins and others, convolutions on the family tree, with whom Fairchild had played with as children, now grown and with families of their own. Change, she had scribbled feverishly in her notebook that sleepless night. Change is the only constant.

A train whistle pierced the night. Fairchild jumped backwards, only to see herself again, and at her side, a child as tall her shoulder. Again she saw the black boy run to the band of iron horses that would bear him West. The question that had troubled her from that day forward returned to the forefront of her mind. Why was this boy so much freer than she? Why could he complete the leap, while she stood on the platform with leaden legs?

Now the answer sprang forth, fully articulated. He did not fight the whims of time's currents and eddies. He rode them, made them his own! As he embraced life and its innumerable, unpredictable changes, a bounty, albeit of unconventional riches, poured into his open hands.

"Come on, ma chère," Facilier said, his voice beginning to sound tense. "Give me your hand."

Fairchild's answer emerged from a place deeper than intellect and even writer's inspiration. "No."

"Iris Fairchild... Have you lost your mind?" Facilier murmured.

"No. I've found it!" It was true. At last, Fairchild saw, really saw, and the difference was as pronounced as her own visions and Facilier's illusions. "You can't give me happiness, Facilier."

"What?"

A profound recognition rose inside of Fairchild, as sweet as laughter, as she remembered poems and contemplation by the river. She recalled long literary conversations with Paul during slow afternoons in the bookshop. She felt the press of children's hands in hers, smiles shared with her fellow maids at school, seeing again and again how many hands made light work. All these things were part of her happiness, though none comprised its entirety, for it changed with each moment.

"Happiness isn't going to a place or staying there or achieving something." Her words came in spurts that slowed and raced with her thoughts; with each one, Fairchild felt as though a new sunbeam had pierced through the clouds in her mind. "Happiness is something beyond definition, something that has no cause because…everyone has it!" In her mind, Fairchild saw the rays converge, forming a crown of light that turned the sky to gold. "I think…I think happiness never really leaves. Maybe seeing it is the tricky part."

Facilier backed away, held his staff before him as though to ward off a particularly vile evil. The outline of his shadow curled and took on a golden-red hue like the edge of a burning paper. Fairchild stared at him in disbelief. High above and all around them, angels and saints watched, too. Facilier did not turn his back on her until he reached the vestibule; once there, he fled as though from the wrath of some god or devil.

Fairchild waited for a few minutes before she left, too. At the door, she met a procession of church-goers bearing bright candles. As she moved back into the cathedral out of their way, they raised their voices in song once more. The music moved through her, waves of hope bearing her to a new shore.

Fairchild sighed as she reentered the night. Whatever wreckage of bridge remained between her and Facilier, she had burned tonight. Nonetheless, she now saw that the path she walked was meant for her, and no matter where it led, it would be a good way.

Two weeks into the New Year, Fairchild visited Paul's shop on her day off. When she entered amidst the tinkle of bells on the doorknob, he was preaching to unseen listeners.

"But tell me, my brethren," the former professor demanded in a voice that rumbled as with the ferocity of primordial fire-spitting mountains. "What the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?"

Fairchild thought she had heard the passage before. She listened, eagerly awaiting the moment of recognition.

"Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea. Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: ITS OWN will, willeth now the spirit; HIS OWN world winneth the world's outcast."

"Amen, Zarathustra," Fairchild said by way of greeting.

Paul looked up and grinned broadly. "Hello there, young lady! How did you spend New Year's Eve?"

Recollecting what had transpired between her and Facilier, Fairchild supposed it was best to give vague, boring answers, and so she did.

"You could have enjoyed an easy chair, a warm fire, and a book discussion with an old man. Not that I expected you; it's been over two months since you left. In any case, I'm glad you came today."

"Why is that?" Fairchild said, rather absently. While she had been away Paul had added many new books to the shop. To read their titles, to touch their covers, to dream of owning them one day was a wonderful thing.

"Last week, a customer came to the shop. Y'all need to meet!"

Before Paul could elaborate, the shop bell tinkled. It was Doctor Facilier, but what a change had come over him! The shadows under his eyes were even darker, as though he had endured a long illness. He leaned heavily on his staff and walked stiffly, in a way that reminded Fairchild of those beaten in the frequent scraps outside her boarding house. Nonetheless, he bore no visible wounds or bruises. An unsettling scent like wet ashes clung to him, and the shadow that so frequently unsettled her trailed behind him, a draggled banner.

"It's that weird fellow who bothered you last summer. Shall I run him off?" Paul closed the book he had been reading and shifted it to one hand as though he meant to squash Facilier like an insect.

"No," Fairchild said, appraising the slender man. What had brought him here, and in this condition?

"This is for Mademoiselle." Facilier held out a card between Fairchild and Paul. His face remained inscrutable, mostly hidden beneath the brim of his top hat.

"I'll thank you not to solicit in my shop! This young lady won't be doing any business with you, either!" Paul drove the book into his palm with a meaty smack.

Facilier's lips formed a ghost of a smile. "I don't expect her to, Paul Morrison."

"How the devil…" Paul muttered.

Fairchild took the card. It was a tarot card: XXI, Le Monde. Upon it, Fairchild saw herself, unclothed save for a silk violet sash. Her hands were folded as though in prayer, a branch of blooming jacaranda petals rising above the steeple of her fingers. An emerald-green snake biting its own tail encircled her. In each corner, silver stars sketched out constellations - a Lion, a Bull, a Cherub and an Eagle – on a canvas of boundless midnight.

"You don't need luck, Iris Fairchild, so I won't wish you any." Facilier's voice was reduced to a rasp, the silver tongue rusted.

"Why are you giving me this?" she asked.

"It's the third card. I thought it was about time you saw it." With that, Facilier shuffled out of the shop.

"What a strange man," Paul murmured. "How does he know the things he does?"

"I don't think we want to know. Now, where were we before he came in?" Fairchild said.

"Oh yes!" Paul smiled broadly. "That man I was telling you about is from California. If you want, I can set up a meeting for the two of you. And I'll attend as well to proclaim your praises, just like with that Rodriguez fellow; if you can't work here with me, you might as well run off West."

"Why, that's wonderful! How unexpected!"

"Now I can't go gettin' your hopes up with guarantees, but! It is a chance."

Fairchild looked again at the card Facilier had given her. He had never said how he had drawn it, Upright or Reversed. Nonetheless, however matters transpired, she was ready to embrace them.

Fin.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed "The Third Card". To read more of my original "short" stories, please visit my website ./

Little factoids I thought y'all might find interesting.

This story began as a Dr. Facilier crush fic and evolved into something much more, mainly my exploration of the PatF theme "want versus need" and the related thoughts of Anthony de Mello. The feminist undercurrent also became very strong.

I called my protagonist "Fairchild" rather than "Iris" to illustrate the status of women in her time and place: she depends on her father for everything she has. I have also assumed that according to the values of the times, prospective marriage partners will want her to be beautiful (connoted by "fair") and virginal (connoted by "child"). Note that Fairchild signs her letters to Eve "Iris" because she feels free to be herself with her (and presumably few others. Fairchild, being a woman of mystery, did not tell me.) I also had Thomas Harris's novels Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal in mind, in which he refers to his protagonist Clarice Starling as "Starling" or "Agent Starling."

The character Paul Morrison is based on a former professor of mine who was an actor and radio personality. I passed many pleasant classes listening to this man bring Shakespeare's characters to life. Paul's readings are from Hamlet and Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Thank you for reading. :)


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